"My whole ambition in life is to set in motion machinery which will bring noble ideas to the door of everybody, and then let men and women settle their own fate.Let them know what our forefathers as well as other nations have thought on the most momentous questions of life. We are to put the chemicals together; the crystallization will be done by nature according to her laws. Keep the motto before you "ELEVATION OF THE MASSES WITHOUT INJURING THEIR RELIGION”
- SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Yesterday, returned from Madurai . Swami Vivekananda visited this city on 2nd February 1897. Was keen to visit the place where Swamiji made the speech [ Reply to the address of Welcome] during his visit. Vague idea, that this place is located near Madurai Railway station, started inquiring people…...The old, the young, the middle aged, government employees, railway police, people in reservation counters…etc. Inquiry went on for an hour, but no one had the clue about the place; forget the place, every one started starring at me with astonishment [nothing new]. From these reactions of people, I decided that these people, not only do not know the place, but they also have no clue of who Swami Vivekananda was..

Intent of me asking people was to find two things; to find the location of the place, and another was to find if people know about Swami Vivekananda. But neither, they knew the place nor did they know about Swami Vivekananda [Some of them had, the slightest remember of the Name “Swami Vivekananda”].

After this experience of mine, I am certain of one thing, “The people, who do NOT know Swami Vivekananda, let them remain as they are [silent and muted]. BUT people who know Swami Vivekananda, if they remain muted and silent without reading him, then we are to see disastrous catastrophe happening!!! Is it not!?

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Just returned from Madurai, the city where Swamiji traveled. Saw the place [ MC school ] where Swamiji, gave a speech - Reply to the address of Welcome. Below transcript [in part] of the same address, gives the intensity with which he wanted India to raise.

“WE must see Religion face to face, experience it, and thus solve our doubts about it; and then standing up in the glorious light of Rishihood each one of us will be a giant; and every word falling from our lips will carry behind it that infinite sanction of security; and before us evil will vanish by itself without the necessity of cursing any one, without the necessity of abusing any one, without the necessity of fighting any one in the world. May the Lord help us, each one of us here, to realise the Rishihood for our own salvation and for that of others! "

Sunday, November 18, 2012

" What we should have is, what we have not, prehaps what our forefathers even had not, that which the Yananas (Greeks) had, that dynamism by whose vibration is issuing forth in rapid succession from the power - house of Europe, the electrific flow of tremendous energy vivifying the whole world. We want that, we want that energy, that love of independence, that spirit of self-reliance, that immovable fortitude, that religion in action, that bond of unity in purpose, that thirst for improvement "

Monday, November 12, 2012

It is not truth, but development, that is the great aim. The struggle is the great lesson. Mind you, the great benefit in this life is struggle. It is through that we pass. If there is any road to Heaven, it is through Hell. Through Hell to Heaven is always the way. When the soul has wrestled with circumstance and has met death, a thousand times death on the way, but nothing daunted has struggled forward again and again and yet again—then the soul comes out as a giant and laughs at the ideal he has been struggling for, because he finds how much greater is he than the ideal. I am the end, my own Self, and nothing else…

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Onward! Upon ages of struggle a character is built. Be not discouraged. One word of truth can never be lost; for ages it may be hidden under rubbish, but it will show itself sooner or later. Truth is indestructible, virtue is indestructible, purity is indestructible. Give me a genuine man; I do not want masses of converts. My son, hold fast! Do not care for anybody to help you. Is not the Lord infinitely greater than all human help? Be holy—trust in the Lord, depend on Him always, and you are on the right track; nothing can prevail against you.¹⁰

It is that sort of work which can conquer the world. What do differences of sect and opinion matter? Bravo! Accept a hundred thousand embraces and blessings from me. Work, work, work — I care for nothing else. Work, work, work, even unto death! Those that are weak must make themselves great workers, great heroes — never mind money, it will drop from the heavens.

We want great spirit, tremendous energy, and boundless enthusiasm, no womanishness will do. Try to go on exactly as I wrote to you in my last. We want organisation. Organisation is power, and the secret of this is obedience.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

It won't do merely to sit idle. You have done a heroic deed! Bravo! Those who falter and vacillate will lag behind, and you will jump straight on top of all! Those that are working for their own salvation will neither have their own nor that of others. Let the commotion that you make be such as to resound to the world's end. There are people who are ready to pick holes in everything, but when it comes to the question of work, not a scent of them can be had! To work! — as far as in you lies! Then I shall go to India and move the whole country. What fear! "Even a snake loses its venom if it is insisted that it has none." These people will go on the negative track, till they are actually reduced to nothing! . . .